Archive for October, 2009

Here’s another minor update to one of my jQuery plugins — this time it’s selectList, version 0.1.1. The update is mostly a code cleanup, with one functional change — if a hint has been provided with the title attribute, it is always shown as the currently selected option in the dropdown list after each selection takes place (as requested by some).

I found him about a month ago, while going for a walk around my neighborhood. He was crawling through some bushes, squeaking silently, but loud enough for me to hear. I have had a few kittens throughout my life, so I immediately recognized the characteristic squeak of a baby cat calling for help. When I saw him, the poor thing looked really miserable, messy, with eyes completely matted shut. Seeing no signs of his cat mother anywhere near, and knowing that the little guy had no chance of surviving on his own, I decided to take him home.

He was soon seen by a veterinarian, and it turned out he was literally covered with ticks. As the doctor put it, they would have “sucked him dry” if he hadn’t been found. It took a whole hour to remove all those little bastards. The doctor also opened Rocket’s matted eyes, and there was some bad news. His eyes were badly infected (in doctor’s words, the infection looked “horrible”), and it was highly likely that he will be blind or nearly blind for the rest of his cat life.

This didn’t sound optimistic, but I thought, what the hell, whatever chance there is, it’s worth trying, so I took him back home and started his treatment (based on massive amounts of various eye drops). At that time, his eyes looked really bad, lifeless and empty, like those of a zombie. Rocket could open them, but it was obvious he couldn’t see a thing.

I have other cats in my apartment, and since Rocket’s infection was contagious, I had to isolate him. I arranged him a cozy therapy room in the bathroom and he stayed there most of the time. However, he had an unstoppable urge to explore the world around him, and whenever I opened the bathroom door, he shot out of there like a freaking rocket. Yup, that’s how he got his name.

Despite being sightless and weakened by his illness, he was unbelievably full of life. I got him a toy rat, and he spent hours biting, strangling, and generally torturing the hell out of it. Whenever he smelled food, he sniffed his way towards it like a hunting dog — and when he got to it, he ate like crazy.

I’m sure it was this exceptional lust for life that made him defeat his illness. After a few days of intensive treatment, I noticed some changes. His eyes looked less zombielike every day, and there were undoubted signs that Rocket was starting to see. This was mostly observable when he paused his activities (which mostly involved running around and biting everything) for a brief moment, and turned his head only slightly, obviously experiencing the formerly unknown sensation of sight.

About two weeks after I found him, he was all better. His eyes looked almost normal, with just a few barely noticeable spots left after the infection. The first time I saw him play with a tiny piece of paper, I had no doubt that he was able to see pretty clearly. Even the doctor was amazed by how well he was doing.

I could not keep Rocket in my apartment for good, because the other cats weren’t getting along with him especially well. Luckily, my mom decided to take him, so now Rocket has a new, loving home, and he’s a happy little troublemaker.